During the election season the words left and right denote political affiliation more than spatial direction. But where do these associations come from?
The left hand has long been associated with deviance. The word “sinister” originally meant “to the left” in Latin. The word “left” comes from the Old English word lyft, which literally meant “weak, foolish.” To avoid the negative and superstitious associations of the left side, many languages used euphemisms for it. In Old English the left side was called winestra, which meant “friendlier.” In Greek it was called aristeros or “the better one.”
When did the political affiliation of these two common words arise? In fact, the association is not American at all. It originated during the French Revolution. In the 1790s, King Louis XVI was fighting with the Legislative Assembly. Like our modern-day House of Representatives, seating in the French Legislative Assembly was arranged based on political affiliation. The King sat in front of the assembly. To his right sat the conservative Feuillants who backed the king and believed in a constitutional monarchy. To his left sat the liberal Girondists and radical Jacobins who wanted to install a completely democratic government. Oddly enough, in the U.S. House of Representatives the tables have turned: members of the Republican party sit to the left of the House Speaker and members of the Democratic party sit to his or her right.
It wasn’t until the early twentieth century that Left and Right denoted political affiliation in Britain and the US, and the more politically loaded terms “leftwing” and “rightwing” were not widely used until after 1960 according to Google’s NGram viewer.
(How well do you know recent history? Test yourself in our Contemporary Presidencies Challenge now.)
Do you think we should get rid of these arbitrary associations?
Very interesting!
There is something wrong with the comments in this blog, sometimes it ltakes long hours until the first ones start to show up.
I think as long as there is a common ground of coming together to compromise, reason and complete the task, then they can be used. On the other hand, if they cause division, gridlock and a do nothing assembly, they should be dissolved.
How long before this turns into a stupid political debate?
I must admit. I do not really get this.
[...] “Left/right#more” — a media convenience — In Civic’s Class The Far Right Monarch. — in opposition to Communist Far Left People’s Republic of lenience. — But of course Power Corrupts, — Glossing over the given absolutely. — We’ve recently listened to ‘Common Sense’ of Paine delivering astutely, — The just cause of Democracy. — Casting off the Far Right. — Not acknowledging contemporary Left. — Whigs and Torys replaced as by a hairpiece, changing as she goes. — Sniffing the Air with an overgrown nose — Hashtag so much more. –>>L.T.Rhyme –”Oui, left the building, right?–>>J.J.Rousseau [...]
The Man in the Iron Mask is about Louis X!V, the Sun King’ not Louis XVI who married Marie Antoinnette and lost his head.
You are right about the National Assembly seating, though. this led to the French Revolution.
Wow, so at least since the late 1700s the right has always wanted to take power from the masses of people and the left has wanted to share the burden AND the wealth of the governing the country. Fascinating!!! I think that after 200 plus years these asscociations are no longer arbitrary and help to define one’s general political leanings.
I believe that left and right are inaccurate descriptions. It is more of a triangle with moderates, the true silent majority, are on the one side. The “left” and the “right” extremists meet together at a point called “My Way or the Highway.” They are not as opposite as they claim and the extremists of both sides are closed minded individuals whose only desire is to control the rest of us.
If that’s not enough, in Canada Blue=conservative and Red=Liberal.
It actually goes back farther than that. In the Old Testament Eccl. 10:2 says ” A wise man’s heart turns him toward his right hand but a fools heart toward his left.” Ecclesiates was attributed to Solomon, King David’s son. You can see how the “left” came to be regarded as sinister or foolish.
ALSO (FYI) in the New Testament, Matthew 25: 32-34, speaking of Christ’s return, it says, ” When the Son of Man comes in His glory and His angels with Him then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats. And He will cause the sheep to stand at His right hand but the goats at His left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand. “Come, you blessed( favored of God and appointed to eternal salvation) inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
^ Is that really true?
The earlier post I made was supposed to be referring to the post made by “John”.
interesting!
What does this story mean can somebody explain it to me please?
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
In keeping with the non-political associations of ‘left’ and ‘right,’ two english words are also derived from the french and have long since entered into the popular lexicon of literale, english speaking persons.
“A droit” in (modern) french translates literally as, “to the right,” spoken in the context of navigational directions. From this comes the english word, “adroit,” the favorable association of which is the meaning (said of persons) “skilled, capable, masterful, felicitous,” as in, “The head of the debating team is an adroit public speaker.”
“Gauche” in (modern) french means the navigational sense of “left,” and from this is derived the english adjective “gauche” meaning “unsuitable, unseemly, awkward, maladroit,” as in, “Her gauche retort was criiticized by the other guests.”
…another info to remember.. ^_^
I think that these terms should be either dissolved or replaced in the political context. Although these terms have come to be useful descriptors, they have their positive and negative connotations. A replacement, with similar but neutral meanings, may be more appropriate these days.
Well, just to confuse the issue even more, in Australia the name of the consevative party, the right wing of the local politics, is the Liberal Party.
It’s very interesing. Many words, and concepts for our mordern culture have been created by French revolution .
This is such a fun thing to learn about
In Australia the centre-right party calls itself The Liberal Party. Shonky marketing.
Interesting. I have to send this to everyone i knnowww
Amusing and droll at the same time Cyberquill. Touche.
“The word “sinister” originally meant “to the left” in Latin.”
Making the latin there look more and more apt.
I think we must not combine religious beliefs with political views.In most of the religious books whether it’s Quran,bible or torat, ultimate paradise is for the people of the”right” on the right path, and “people on the left” are the wrong doers,the leftists,the sinisters.In politics the views are totally different.in my opinion both the wings whether leftists or the rightists,are on the sinister track.None of them would lead us to our salvation in this world or hereafter.So keep working individually.This was an interesting article to read.
@lesula: It could be because someone at Dictionary.com has to approve the comments before they are publicly posted.
Anyway, very interesting post. It is odd that we’ve switched the directions, though.
I think we should change them to something that describes their attributes more clearly.
‘Left’ should be ‘Good’ and ‘Right’ should be ‘Evil’
I knew someone once that said he was so far left he was right or was it that he was so far right he was left. I am left handed when I play tennis , but when I kick a soccer ball its with my right foot. I am a republican and so I want Mitt Romney to win.
I love when I come looking up a word and find out something this interesting. Love this dictionary.
Wow, I really like Kristin Thomsen’s view on this. Insightful Kristin.
The same even applies in a disorganised regime such as the current one in Zimbabwe, i.e. Robert Mugabe vs Morgan Tsvangirai
Conservative (and in this case) extremist vs Liberal democrat respectfully.
Yes, in Canada, the liberals are red, and the Conservatives are blue.
Interesting. The left and the right are further divided in to the far left& far right. And those in the middle – the cat on the wall types – are called the centrists. But at the end of the day all are after power, money & self glorification, it does not matter if they left right or center.
Interesting I didn’t know that.
One could say that we haven’t reversed the positions, we’ve changed the perspective from the king’s to the people’s. As Louis faced the Estates, the Girondists and Jacobins were on HIS left, but we look at our Congress from the Visitors’ Gallery, and the Democrats are on OUR left, the Republicans on OUR right. The difference is an eloquent index of just what has changed since 1790.
Right on Kristen Thomsen! The 20th century showed that it’s not a line but a circle, the totalitarianism of the right became hard to distinguish from the totalitarianism of the left. Nonetheless I still find the terms useful, and intend to continue using them.
As to “liberal”, there’s a tangle this site should take up! The first liberals were indeed advocates of a “free (LIBERAted) market”, thus apologists for the newly rich capitalists of the industrial revolution. By a circuitous political and linguistic path, the word came to mean the opposite in America, but apparently not down under.
i love you, I am a republican and so I want Mitt Romney to win.
to be english teacher
That was amazing! I was thinking about the reason today!!!!!!!!
TNX so much.The information of this site is AWESOME
I believe the origin is way older than the 1700s and goes back to the earliest medieval times at dinner the closest friend of the king would always be seated at his right side and at council meetings so would his favorite adviser, when that seating arrangement was changed and the advisor seated on the left side it meant a loss of favor.
Left in Italian is sinistra, in French sinistre means sinister and left is gauche which means awkward.
I believe the color blue for US liberals is due to the fact that the democrats are getting blue in face explaining the obvious to the GOP and red is for shame having being caught at it again, hoping this put a smile on your face.
Yes, AND in Australia the “Liberal” (centre-right/conservative) Party’s colour is blue, and the Labor (centre-left) Party’s colour is red! In fact, I thought red was the colour for leftist politics everywhere, since left-wing extremism (aka communism) has always used red in its symbolism. Is it the other way around in the US – red = right-wing?
Apart from that, I’ve always assumed that “right” was associated with skill, strength, goodness etc., and “left” with clumsiness, weakness and even wickedness, simply because the vast majority of human beings are right-handed! So, especially in more superstitious times, a person whose left hand was the stronger one could easily be branded as a bit strange… or sinister.
I bet whoever wrote this is itching to see the political claws come out.
I’ve reached to a contemporary discover: Those on “Right” are friendly to USA, those on “Left” want the destruction of USA…
very interesting！ thanks dictionary.com
Wow! I actually am more to conservative.
Interesting that so many quickly go past the historical information on the origin of the two terms, to accept the labels as accurate depictions of political points of view — which they are – sometimes — and on other occasions are not. And even more interesting how at least one post confuses the direction “right” with the “right path” (where “right” means “correct”). Same word, different meanings in the two different contexts. Sigh…
It would be simpler to ask the Democrats and Republicans to swap. But of course it would be only valid if you consider that Republicans want to preserve current institutions and Democrats want to create new ones. We may find the centre a crowded place 
In my opinion, the roles of left and right have been flipped significantly, while still being kept traditional in an odd way… In France, the Right represented monarchy, but also conservative views, while the Left represented democracy, and progressive views. In the modern U.S. though, Right represents democracy, yet also conservation, while the Left favors more socialist (closely related to monarchy) and progressive views…. A very odd flip to be sure.
….Politics are annoying
I thought the left and right referred to the banks of Paris. The left bank was inhabited by the philosophers and artists, while the right bank was/is inhabited by Banking and Business. While I cannot be sure, it seems far more likely that the positioning of the Assembly was itself based on the geographic positioning of Parisians.
Well, there is the story of the anxious lady who arived at the railway station all flustered and anxious about where her train was. She asked a porter for directions. His reply was ‘Well you go down here, turn left and you’ll be right’. She looked at him and said ‘Don’t be silly!’. To which he replied ‘OK, turn right and you’ll be left’.
But seriously, folks, it is interesting that right back to biblical times there has been implications about ‘right’ and ‘left’ ’sit upon the right hand of God …’ and stuff. Unfortunately, as has been well described by various commenters here, Liberals call themselves ‘right’ and ‘left’ is those with a social conscience (so Liberals clearly don’t have one) and the colour of the truly socially conscious (that is, the Communists and Socialists) is red when those Rightist Liberals (if that is not an apparent contradiction in terms) is Blue … and so on.
It has become awfully distorting to set the political spectrum up thus. What would be far more telling is the redefine the political spectrum as Far Left = anarchistic in the extreme, and Far Right = dictatorial in the extreme. This would conveniently put Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Franco and all those of their ilk together. Then, the Liberals and the Social-Democrats and the Republicans and so forth can distribute themselves along that spectrum, depending on the amount of government intervention an authoritarianism that they wish to impose on the populace at large.
Of course, the Socialists will object, because they of course just want egalitarianism and to be nice to everyone, even if they utimately will do it at the point of a gun. The Communists will object because they want a Peoples Dictatorship, which means everyone owns everything but nobody owns anything … or you’ll be executed! It might even help s see that the Liberals, the New Labour, the Democrats, the Republicans are actually all pretty much on the same wavelength in this spectrum with little to choose betweenthem. They all want to take money from somene and give it to someone else. The only difference being who the various someones are.
intriguing!
As in the order of precedence of the flag, the position is determined not from the direction facing the assembly, but in its own right. The Republicans face the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate standing in their own right side; the Democrats, belonging to the sinister party, stand on their own left side.
I feel like there is something missing from this post. I think perhaps the word “right” was accidentally replaced with “left” in this paragraph toward the bottom:
The left hand has long been associated with deviance. The word “sinister” originally meant “to the left” in Latin. The word “left” comes from the Old English word lyft, which literally meant “weak, foolish.” To avoid the negative and superstitious associations of the left side, many languages used euphemisms for it. In Old English the left side was called winestra, which meant “friendlier.” In Greek it was called aristeros or “the better one.”
I believe the sentence that starts with “In Old English” probably is in reference to the right hand, yes? Otherwise, the following paragraph related to “these two words” makes absolutely no sense, because the preceding paragraph only ever talks about one word: “left.”
I feel like there is something missing from this post. I think perhaps the word “right” was accidentally replaced with “left” in this paragraph:
The left hand has long been associated with deviance. The word “sinister” originally meant “to the left” in Latin. The word “left” comes from the Old English word lyft, which literally meant “weak, foolish.” To avoid the negative and superstitious associations of the left side, many languages used euphemisms for it. In Old English the left side was called winestra, which meant “friendlier.” In Greek it was called aristeros or “the better one.”
I believe the sentence that starts with “In Old English” probably is in reference to the right hand, yes? Otherwise, the following paragraph related to “these two words” makes absolutely no sense, because the preceding paragraph only ever talks about one word: “left.”
@ DOUG
@ REBECCA
@ COURTENAY
Re: The Australian designation of ‘Liberal’ as the conservative party
Noone has qualified what the other party is. Is it ‘Labour,’ as in Britain, and, if so, how do Australians spell it? Thanks to all.
Please abolish the distinction; for the left has lost faith in the future and the right is betraying the past. In the USA there is now a division between the ‘parasite class’, which does not pay income tax (eg Enron) and the working class (which Sarah Palin idolises as the farmers, miners and townsfolk). Create a new Manichean division: the Herculean class (heroes for being workers) and the Sarcophogean class (villains for being vultures).
I’ve been wondering recently why we can only vote for groups, or parties, with specfic platforms. Wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for each indivdual law and cause and for the people to be more involved, rather than just voting for one party and then letting them take it from there until the next election.
Are there any places that have this sort of democracy in place? Sort of an open goverment- I think. (Instead of voting democratic or rebulican, or in the case here in Canada Liberal, Conservative, NDP or Green. People would vote yes or no on abortion, yes or no on death penalty, yes or no on education cuts &c
We should get rid of. Dividing everybody into two is a well understood method of controlling the population. The population has many more sides and points of view. The power needs to be divided across more groups. The American people should not let themselves be divided by these arbitrary methods that are reinforced by the Media. It is all a system of control. Anyway, given that in the US, the 1% pays for BOTH the Republican and Democrat parties, the left-right distinction is a false one. The real and only distinction should be 1% and 99%. And, the 99% had better learn to stick together instead of staying loyal to these false parties.
‘cest la vie’
Just how would we get rid of these associations? What would take their place? I have a few in mind!
“Oddly enough, in the U.S. House of Representatives the tables have turned: members of the Republican party sit to the left of the House Speaker and members of the Democratic party sit to his or her right.”
Freaking C-SPAN
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I never knew that “left” meant sinister. Not sure what to think about that since I’m a lefty…
Oh my goodness! Amazing article dude! Many thanks,
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respond? Thanks!!
The left hand has long been associated with deviance.<—-(copied and pasted) Funny I'm left handed and very defiant, like my father. I think he's left handed to. Lol our hand writing is similar if you compare it. The school thought I forged his signature on all my papers. I had to get them to call him. It sucks being the trouble maker at school. 
like my daddy. lol
Well there are some inaccuracies , “la gauche” (left-wing) is close related to the abstract thinking (Plato is a good example) and “la droit” (right –wing) is more pragmatic and “pied à terre” (Aristotle maybe), that is the reason than there is not a left-wing in the anglo-saxon countries ( liberal and conservatives are part of the right), the centre does not exist and only “la gauche et le droit” and the far-right( Nazism and fascism) and extreme-left (Leninism ), the third way and the centre are only technocrats (closer to the right).
If you enjoy words or grammar, you should check this out!
No need to get rid of these associations. However, given that the sides in the U.S. House of Representatives are reversed relative to Louis XVI’s Legislative Assembly, we should start calling the left right and the right left.